Academic Skills Advice
Developing an Argument:
What an Argument is
This workshop will:
-
Examine the process of developing an ‘argument’ when preparing and
writing
Identify the components of an ‘argument’
Understanding the roles of claims and inferences
Teaching points:
1. What is a claim?
2. What is an inference?
3. What is an argument?
1
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
1. What is a claim?
Let’s start from the beginning: when you argue
academically (whether on paper or face-to-face),
you make a number of points about something,
you are saying ‘such and such is the case’ so ‘such
and such is the case’ and ‘such and such is the case’ so ‘such and such is the case’
therefore ‘x’. You are making a series of claims which together make up your
argument.
The weather isn’t as good as the news said it would be.
If you look at this from an academic viewpoint, you apply critical thinking to the
claim. In other words,



you look at the possible meaning and significance of it
evaluate it by comparing it to other claims
make an informed decision
You would ask questions such as, ‘is this claim telling us something significant?’ and
‘what else do we need to know in order to respond to this claim?’ So, when we look
at claim such as…
Including President Obama, five out of the most recent seven US
presidents have been left-handed.
…we ask what is the possible significance of this claim? If this claim surprised you,
there might be some significance to be found. Is it telling us anything more
significant than the next claim?
All US presidents have been men.
This tells us something more than just the simple piece of information. What it tells
us varies from reader to reader, but it does tells us something about the dominance
of men in US politics. The claim shows a pattern that has at least one
straightforward meaning.
Let’s go back to the first claim:
Including President Obama, five out of the most recent seven US
presidents have been left-handed.
2
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
What questions could (or should) we ask about this claim?
A.
B.
C.
D.
So, to give a claim a significance, to decide what it might mean, we often need to
know more about it. By this we mean that we often need to know more about other
things that are relevant to it – we need to do some research.
Before we could do anything with the claim (piece of evidence) on the high
proportion of recent US presidents being left-handed, we needed to ask and answer
questions about its possible meaning. Now we’ve done that, is does appear the
evidence has significance.
Activity 1: Entrepreneurial dyslexics
Claim:
35% of US and 20% of UK entrepreneurs are dyslexic
What else do you need to know if this evidence is, in any way, significant? What are
the questions you need to ask? In pairs or groups jot them down in the space below.
3
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
Next, we look for an explanation (why is this the case?) and then we look at the
inference/s (what follows from the evidence and explanation).
Claim/evidence
Explanation/why
Inference/what
follows
2. What is an inference?
When one claim is used to claim something else, then we have an inference.
One of the most notorious examples of the disputed significance of a claim are the
words ‘Let him have it, Chris’. These were apparently the words used by a young
man called Derek Bentley to his friend, Chris Craig, who had a gun whilst they were
planning to break into a warehouse. Craig shot and killed a policeman. The jury
decided Derek meant ‘shoot the policeman’: he was found guilty and hung. Derek
also had a learning disability and had the mental age of 11. Craig was too young to
be executed.
So, one example of an inference is….
Derek Bentley had a mental age of 11, so he should not have been hanged.
The first claim about Derek’s mental age is used to infer (draw) the second claim
that he shouldn’t have been hanged.
Another way of showing this is:
Derek Bentley had a mental age of 11
He should not have been hanged.
claim
claim
This is one inference of a number that make up an argument.
4
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
3. What is an argument?
An argument is made up of many inferences and claims defending one view point.
However many claims are used, just remember that an argument is just…
inference [i.e. claim
claim] x many = argument
What other inferences, based on the above, could you make
to defend the position or argument that Derek should not have been hanged?
Let’s go back to the entrepreneurial dyslexics:
35% of US and 20% of UK entrepreneurs are dyslexic
Suggested explanations given are:





Dyslexics were more than twice as likely as non-dyslexics to delegate
authority.
Dyslexics excel in oral communication.
Dyslexics excel in problem-solving
Strategies that dyslexics have used since childhood to offset their weaknesses
in written communication include being able to identify trustworthy people to
who responsibility can be delegated for taking major decisions.
The difference between the US and the UK percentages is explained by
‘earlier and more effective intervention by American schools to help dyslexic
students deal with their learning problems’.
5
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
Activity 2: Entrepreneur inferences
What inferences could you take from these explanations to defend the argument
that dyslexics should be actively recruited by organisations? In pair or groups, jot
down what you think the inferences are.
This process of claim
claim is designed to persuade others ‘here is a
claim, so this follows from this’. We might or might not agree, so we’re back to
where we started from – looking at the significance of claims and questioning them.
References
Clip art – argument
th
Cottrell, S. (2013) The study skills handbook. 4 Ed. Basingstoke,
Palgrave Macmillan.
Oxford Dictionaries. (2014) Abbreviations. Oxford, OUP.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/abbreviations Accessed 9 July
2014.
Sauter, J. (2008) The Apostrophe character rendered using the OCR-A
font. Florida: Wikimedia Commons. [online] Available at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OCR-A_char_Apostrophe.svg
Accessed 7 July 2014.
Super Teacher Worksheets. (2013) There, Their, They’re.
Tonawanda:Super Teacher Worksheets.
6
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
http://www.superteacherworksheets.com/homophones/there-theirtheyre.pdf Accessed 16 June 2014.
University of Surrey. (2014) Writing skills. Guildford, University of Surrey.
http://libweb.surrey.ac.uk/library/skills/writing%20Skills%20Leicester/pa
ge_01.htm Accessed 6 March 2014.
University of Wisconsin-Madison. (2014) 10: Apostrophe errors.
Madison: The University of Wisconsin-Madison.
https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/CommonErrors_Apos.html Accessed
7. July 2014.
Van den Brink-Budgen, R. (2010) Critical thinking for students. 4th Ed.
Oxford, How To Books Ltd.
Answers
Left-handed presidents claim
A.
What proportion of the US population is left-handed? 10% so there may be
something significant about such a high proportion of recent left-handed presidents.
B.
What about the presidents before the last seven? 3 out of 36, ie about 10%.
So why are recent presidents so different?
C.
If Barack Obama had lost the election in 2008, would that have meant that
four of the most recent seven US presidents had been left-handed? No: his
opponent was left-handed. If George W. Bush (right-handed) had lost, his opponent
was also left-handed!
D.
How many other countries have (had) left-handed leaders?
7
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills
Academic Skills Advice
Activity 1: Dyslexic entrepreneurs
Is the definition of ‘entrepreneur’ the same in the US as it is in the UK?
Is the definition of ‘dyslexia’ the same in the US as it is in the UK?
Are the figures of 35 and 20% significant?
More specifically, what figure would we expect if the % of dyslexic entrepreneurs
was the same as the % of the population that is dyslexic?
If the figure is not the same (or not even nearly the same), what might be an (or
the) explanation?
NOTE: 10% is likely to be the proportion of people who are dyslexic in any given
organisation.
Derek Bentley inferences
a) Derek Bentley did not shoot the gun so he should not have been hung.
b) Derek Bentley meant ‘give the gun to the policeman’ so he should not have
been hung.
Activity 2: Entrepreneur inferences
a) People with dyslexia should be recruited to work in organisations where the
ability to delegate is important.
b) People with dyslexia should be recruited to work in organisations where
problem-solving abilities are important.
c) People with dyslexia should be recruited to work in organisations where the
ability to communicate is important.
8
www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills